Strawberries and Scamanders
by Julia Claire
Summary: Lucy Weasley has never liked either. Oneshot.


**A/N: Written for the Hogwarts Online Prompt of the Day, "Strawberries."**

Strawberries and Scamanders

She can't _stand _them.

They're only boys - four years younger than she is, and small for their age besides. They have big blue eyes and brown curls and everyone thinks they're _just so cute_ - except for Lucy.

"Boys will be boys, Luce," her mum always sighs, "Just ignore them."

And she tries, she really does, but they're little bloody devils and they know exactly how to put her in a rage that rivals her grandmother's.

She's really not bad-tempered - she's _not_. No matter what her family says.

Even if she _was_, it wouldn't be her fault - it'd be theirs - Lorcan and Lysander Scamander's.

* * *

It's her seventh birthday, and Lucy feels like a princess. She's wearing a brand-new blue dress and everyone is at Grandma and Grandpa's house, having a party just for her.

It's perfect, until they come. Rolf and Luna Scamander have just moved back to England after spending five years in Greece (where all the most interesting magical creatures are, they say), and they've brought back the worst birthday present Lucy has ever received in her life -

The twins.

At first, she thinks their the most adorable things she's ever seen in her life, even if they do take away some of her spotlight, because they're _identical_, with the same chubby cheeks and angelic smiles.

They toddle around after her and she leads them down to the strawberry patches at the bottom of the hill, because she likes them so much that she's even willing to share her favourite fruit.

Lucy and strawberries are almost synonyms - they're both small and red and sortof on the chubby side. Her hair is even strawberry blond - a lighter shade of red than her father and sister's.

One of them - she never does figure out which - picks a strawberry and holds it out to her. "Here."

She smiles widely and takes it. "Thank you!" Lucy closes her eyes and takes a big bite and savours the sweetness. As the juice dribbles down her chin, Lorcan and Lysander giggle.

"What?" she asks them, opening her eyes and laughing.

"Lucy ate a worm!" they giggle, as if it's the best thing that has ever happened.

She looks down and screams - because they're exactly half of a worm in the strawberry now, and it's the most _disgusting_ thing that has ever happened to her in her whole life.

Lucy can barely look at a strawberry after that without blanching, and it's the very beginning of the period of her life that she can sum up in four words: The Scamanders ruin _everything_.

* * *

Lucy groans when they come to Hogwarts in her fifth year - Lily, Lysander, and Lorcan, all at the same time. It's really too much to handle, especially seeing as Lily is the twins' best friends, and nearly as annoying as they are.

Everyone is ecstatic when they're Sorted into Gryffindor, although the excitement does fade slightly when quiet little Hugo shocks the entire Wizarding World by being the first Weasley ever to be Sorted into Slytherin.

Lucy just wishes he would've taken the twins with him. In her mind, they certainly belong there.

They don't do anything all that bad, though, and so she kind of forgets about them. They're only first years, after all, and she's a fifth year, and she can certainly ignore them.

So that's what she does until one night when John Davies - the seventhyear Chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch team - has finally come over to talk to her in the common room, after she's been crushing on him for nearly a year.

He's telling her some story about running into a vampire in France over the summer, but she's not really listening, too busy thinking about how very good-looking he is.

She so entranced, in fact, that she doesn't even notice the commotion in the common room until Davies mentions it.

"Hey, what's going on over there...?"

There's a huge knot of people right by the fireplaces, blocking her view, but she can just see two curly brown heads at the center.

"Lucy's going to kill you!" she hears Rose say, and she rushes over there, without giving John a backwards glance.

"Lorcan!" she yells, "Lysander! What the heck is going on?"

"Nothing, Luce," one of them emerges from the crowd to tell her sweetly. "We were just showing off our new colour-changing spell..."

She pushes past him and all the other idiots who are watching the spectacle. It takes her all of five seconds to get to the front of the crowd (because she's Lucy Weasley, after all, and she's nothing if not pushy) and then she sees her poor old Kneazle, Lion, fast asleep on the rug.

Except that it doesn't really look like Lion anymore, because he's changing colours every second - first blue, then red, next a bright shade of purple.

She turns around and run smack into Lorcan, Lysander, and Lily, all of whom are wearing the same guilty expression.

"What in the name of Merlin happened to my cat?" she screams at them, and they all flinch. People start backing away.

Lily says, "Well, we were in the library, and Lorcan found this new charm..."

"And we came back to the common room, and Lion was laying there, so we thought we should try it out on him," the one of the twins finishes. "Well, I had the idea. Lily's the only one that could actually do it."

"It's not hurting him," his brother adds, rather indignantly. "We'd never hurt an animal."

It's true that Lion really doesn't seem disturbed, and the whole thing is more odd than actually hurtful, so Lucy just snaps at them to, "Change him back!" and storms off in a huff.

She looks around for Davies, but he's already talking to Jessica Dawson. He looks over at her, and she smiles, but he just makes a face and turns back to Jess.

Lucy is devastated. She cries that night in the common room, after everyone but her and Rose have gone to bed.

"It'll be okay, Luce," her cousin soothes. "He's a bit of an idiot anyway."

"But - things were going so well, and then - those stupid Scamanders - "

"You shouldn't have lost your temper," Rose sighs. "It wasn't their fault..."

She knows Rose has a point. Losing Davies's affection is just as much her fault as it is Lily, Lorcan, and Lysander's, if not more. But it's so much easier to lay all the blame on them.

So she snaps at her favourite cousin and flounces off to bed, hating the Scamanders and Lily Potter with all of her broken heart.

* * *

"You're too hard on them," Dominique says on night in the common room, when the twins have managed to make paper cut-outs of what they say are Crumpled-Horned Snorkacks rain from the ceiling. "I mean, what's the harm in making it rain paper?"

Lucy grimaces. "It's just - they're so annoying and they're always taking the mickey out of me. Maybe they're nice to all of you, but they bloody hate me."

"Are you kidding? They love you. Lorcan especially. Why, I don't know," she teases, "But they do. You're just a good target."

"What are you talking about?"

Dom sighs. "Lucy, you're the most - er - volatile person I've ever met, and that's coming from me. You lose your temper over the slightest thing."

"Do not," Lucy insists, her face already getting hot.

"Okay," Dominique rolls her eyes, "Whatever. I still think you're much too tough on them. They're not the least bit mean-spirited."

"They enjoy making my life hell," Lucy says flatly, "With their stupid, odd tricks and their cute faces and - and - you're just stupid, Dom!"

She immediately regrets it, because she really doesn't want to hurt her cousins' feelings, but when Dominique just laughs, she rather wishes she had.

* * *

Lucy opens the door to her dormitory one night a few months later and screams. She slams the door behind her and runs back to the common room.

The whole of Gryffindor stares at her as she enters. Some people look frightened, while others laugh.

"There's... a... Niffler..." she gasps, "In the dormitory! It's destroying _everything_!" Several of the older girls run up to the dormitory to try to subdue it.

"I'll go get McGonagall," the Head Girl, Nicole Brown, announces importantly.

"A Niffler?" James Potter exclaims, and Lucy can tell he's impressed. "How someone manage to get one of those in here?"

She points to Lily, Lysander, and Lorcan, who are huddled in the back of the crowd. They're all giggling, but wear unmistakably guilty expressions. "I reckon you should ask them."

James lets out a huge chuckle, then glances back at her, and shuts up, apparently deciding to do the smart thing for once.

Lucy stomps over to them. "I wouldn't want to be in their shoes," Rose mutters as she passes. Albus, who is sitting next to her, looks scared.

"So - let's hear it - why in the name of Merlin did you put a Niffler in my dormitory?" Lucy fires at them, as the whole of Gryffindor common room gets quiet, watching the scene.

"Why do you always assume that it was us?" Lorcan-or-Lysander protests.

"Because it always is you, isn't it?" Lucy shouts.

"It's only a baby, Lucy," Lily says sweetly.

"Well, the _baby_ just wrecked all my stuff," she snaps.

"We didn't mean any harm," the other Scamander pleads, "Honest. It was me and Ly's birthday present, that's all."

"You got a Niffler for your birthday?" she asks increduously. "Godric - I didn't know your parents were that crazy."

"It wasn't - "

Lucy cuts him off. "But if you didn't mean any harm, then why didn't at least keep it in your dormitory?"

"'Cause Christine and her brother Steven are both in our year, and they're allergic to animal fur," he frowns, "And spines, I guess."

"So, of course," she says, the next room you'd pick would be _mine_. Not James's or Albus's or Molly's or Roxanne's or anyone else's. Mine."

"What's going on here?" McGonagall asks, entering the common room, with Nicole trailing behind her.

"They put a Niffler in my dormitory, Professor," Lucy tells her.

"We got it!" yell the older girls that went up to Lucy's dormitory as they come back down the stairs. One of them is holding a Stunned Niffler.

McGonagall eyes the it, then glances back at the Scamanders and Lily, her mouth looking thin. "Did you do this?"

Lysander - or at least the one Lucy thinks is Lysander, from what his brother said before - looks straight at her. "Yep."

"My office," she says, "Now."

"Do you want me to come too, Professor?" Lucy asks gleefully, hoping she can hear them get yelled at.

"That won't be necessary, Miss Weasley," she answers.

Still, Lucy is fairly happy, because for once, she's actually come out on top.

The next day, however, she receives a remarkably bad mark on her Care of Magical Creatures homework. She's never been a very good student, and she certainly doesn't excel at Care of Magical Creatures, but she's never gotten a T before.

When she asks Professor Hagrid about it, however, he just stares at her, looking angry and sad at the same time, and tells her she'll have to work harder next time.

Then she realises who must have gave the Scamanders their present and walks away cursing.

Somehow, Lorcan and Lysander Scamander always manage to get the last laugh.

* * *

Lucy is her sixth year and she knows she is much too old to be chasing third-years. _Again_.

"Give it back to me!" she screams, but she's knows it's in vain, because they're never going to listen. There's three of them and one of her and despite their short legs, they're all much faster.

She'll never catch up to them and she'll probably be late to Transfiguration, but Lucy is too angry to care about anything other than Lysander, Lorcan, and Lily and the tiny notebook that one of the twins has in his hand.

"You'll pay for this!" she yells, and she sees the three of them turn their heads, huge grins on their faces. One of the twins is so busy laughing at her that he runs straight into a burly Slytherin sixth-year. Before he can get hexed, however, Lily pulls him up and they rush away.

Lucy is nearly out of breath and she's already gotten about ten dirty looks from kids she's almost plowed down, but she's not giving up.

Eventually, she loses them in the maze of the Hogwarts corridors and staircases, but finds her diary stuffed into one of the knights' helmets. She tries to wrench it out and manages it, but not before setting off some charm to make it rain Crumple-Horned Snorkacks on her. (The twins swear they don't believe in them, but Lucy isn't so sure. They definitely like them quite a lot.)

She stomps off to Transfiguration nearly ten minutes late and the second she walks in Professor McGonagall assigns her a detention.

"Lovely," she mumbles, and plops into her seat next to Davies. He looks over at her mussed up hair and red cheeks and wrinkles his nose.

"You've got a dragon picture thing in your hair," he tells in such a condecending tone that she wants to smack him. Rose is right - he is an idiot, and she can't believe she used to like him in fifth year.

"It's a Crumple-Horned Snorkack," she snaps loudly, which gets a titter from the class and another detention from McGonagall.

_

* * *

_

It's Lucy's seventh year now, and she's on her very last Hogsmeade visit.

"I love Honeydukes," Lucy comments, breathing in the sugary aroma.

"Me too," her friend Emma sighs. "I think I'm going to get some sugar quills."

"Alright," Lucy says, grabbing some Chocolate Frogs and going up to the cashier to buy them.

She rips one open, and looks around for Emma. As she does, she almost feels a rush of air going past her hands, but when she looks down, she doesn't see anything.

Deciding it was nothing, she bites into the chocolate and -

"Urgh!"

"What's wrong?" Emma asks.

"It strawberry-flavoured," Lucy spats, trying to rid the taste from her mouth. It still makes her think of worms.

"I didn't know they made strawberry-flavoured Chocolate Frogs."

"They don't," Lucy sighs, spotting three small figures just before they scramble out of the shop.

For a moment, she actually contemplates just letting it go, but it's practically a tradition for her to chase after them, to yell at them, so that's exactly what she does.

* * *

_Nine Years Later_

"Oi, Lucy!"

She turns. "Hello, Lorcan."

She still can tell them apart, but she figures that there's no way Lysander would leave Lily on their wedding night to come talk to her.

"How've you been?" he asks. "Haven't really seen you except in passing a few times, but these last few months have been crazy."

"I bet," she nods, "But you all did a great job with the reception - the hall's beautiful and the food is great."

"Yeah, well, I didn't really do all that much," he said, "It was mostly Mum and Ginny. The food is good, though - have you had some strawberry rhubarb pie yet?"

She can't stop herself from making a face.

"Oh," he laughs, "I forgot. You hate strawberries, don't you?"

"Ever since you and your brother fed me one with a bloody worm in it," she admits, giggling. "I still can't stomach them."

"Sorry about that," he says sheepishly, "Then again, I was only - Merlin, I don't even know."

"It was my seventh birthday," Lucy tells him, "So you were three."

"So that was nineteen years ago," Lorcan shakes his head in disabelief. "I can't believe that - nineteen years since we first met."

"Nineteen years since they did, in fact," Lucy points out, indicating Lysander and Lily. "And now they're getting married."

Lorcan snorts. "Yeah, well, we all knew that was going to happen the second they laid eyes on each other, didn't we?"

"Did we?" Lucy asks, surprised. "I guess I could've guessed she'd end up with one of you, but I never could have said which one."

"Well, you were never very good at telling us apart," he says, looking right at her.

She blushes. "Yeah, sorry."

"Oh, it's fine," he laughs, "Merlin, my own father couldn't even tell me from Ly sometimes - Mum always could though. So could Lily, and she always preferred Ly, at least romantically. They're both, well, a lot more _wild_ than I am."

"I heard Lysander got a job working with Charlie in Romania."

"Yep," Lorcan says, "And he told me he's starting off _tame_. But he's a much better match for Lily than I am - I mean, heck, I think she wants to be the first professional Beater that was also an Auror at the same time."

"Which is funny, really," Lucy comments, "Because she was always so set on doing things differently from her parents."

"Yeah," he says, looking sad. "Like I said, they're a lot different from I am. I used to feel a bit like a third wheel after they started going out." He sighs, and they fall into silence.

"You okay, Lorcan?" Lucy asks knowingly.

Maybe he knows what she's implying because he shakes his head and says, "Oh, I'm not jealous like that. Lily's like my sister - it's just - I don't know. They'll always have each other, and who will I have now? I don't have a girlfriend, and I've just lost my two best friends to each other."

"Well," Lucy says, "If it's any consolation, and it probably isn't, my romantic life hasn't exactly been a picnic lately, either," she sighs, "Finnigan and I broke up."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Lorcan says, "Lily told me."

"Of course," Lucy groans, "Can't keep anything private, not in this family."

He chuckles. "I've missed you, Luce."

She smiles wryly, "Thanks, Lorcan. I suppose I've missed you and your tricks too."

"We were little devils to you, weren't we?" he asks.

"Nah," she says, "Just a bit annoying, and let's be honest - I was a bit of a witch. Don't really blame you for hating me."

"We didn't hate you," he says in surprise. "Where did you get an idea like that?"

"Well, hate is probably the wrong word," Lucy admits, "But I wasn't exactly your favourite person, now was I?"

"You were just the most fun to tease," he says truthfully, "I definitely liked you. I thought your hair was pretty, in first year."

"Thought?" she teases. "So it's not pretty anymore?"

"'Course it is," he says seriously. "Really, Luce, we didn't hate you."

Lucy shakes her head. "You had a funny way of showing your affection, then."

"Well, I was only eleven," he says, "I reckon I can do better now."

"Oh," she grins, "How so?"

"Want to dance, Lucy?"

She laughs at the how full circle they've come. "I'd love to. Just - I have to do something first."

"What?" he frowns, "I mean, we don't have to dance if - "

"No," she shakes her head, "I want to, but - I think I'll have to try some of that strawberry rhubarb pie first." They're inexplicably linked in her mind, strawberries and Scamanders.

And as she bites into it (Lorcan's right - it's delicious), Lucy thinks that she's beginning a new chapter of her life.

Because maybe Scamanders don't ruin _everything._

* * *

Two years later, when Lucy and Lorcan announce their engagement to her family, every single one of the Weasleys (including Molly), who have heard Lucy complain about the Scamander twins for _years_, burst out laughing.

* * *

** I really don't know where all this NextGen is coming from, but it is a lot of fun to write! I really fell in love with this pairing after reading some of the stories by s i l v e r a u r o r a - and I'm sure they're much better than mine, so go read them! I'd love it if you'd leave me a review first, though. **


End file.
